Trolling motors have been long used by anglers to move their skiffs slowly through the water in search of fish. These motors, which are usually electric, are adapted to move a fishing skiff, bass boat or the like at a speed conducive to the use of triling lures such as "spinners" or other such lures which are designed to be pulled through the water.
Accurate control of these motors is essential for both the safety of the angler as well as to correctly poisition the lure so as to maximize the anglers take of fish. Previous controllers have been made so as to allow the angler to control the direction of the craft from a location remote from the trolling motor. U.S. Pat. No. 4,614,900 to Young discloses a remote control for a boat motor which is, in the first embodiment, activated by a foot pedal. The pedal allows for an up-and-down as well as left-and-right motion which corresponds to a like action of the trolling motor; in another embodiment, the controller is hand-held and discloses a switch to change direction as well as a second switch to turn the motor on or off.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,408 toAertker et al discloses a trolling motor controller having an analog control mechanism which is contained in a foot pedal. This device is adapted to be placed in a position in the boat and operated by the angler from such placed position.
Both Aertker and Young describe controllers which either occupy the use of a hand, thereby inhibiting the use of the hand for other uses without first putting down the controller, or conversely are operated by a foot pedal which essentially fixes the location of the angler within the boat. It is therefore apparent that these devices do not allow true freedom of the angler to perform the various tasks necessary or desired during fishing without, for a tiome, leaving the boat uncontrolled.